life undoing of two Welsh men —
an 1801 incident now referred to
as “the tragedy of Smalls Light-
house” — the film transports au-
diences to the past with its black-
and-white imagery and 1.19:1 as-
pect ratio, shot through lenses
designed in the early 20th cen-
tury. Eggers worked with cin-
ematographer Jarin Blaschke to
fulfill the vision he had when his
brother Max, with whom he
wrote the script, mentioned
years ago that he had been work-
ing on a ghost story set in a
lighthouse.
There’s a specific “kind of
bleakness and extreme texture
that is achieved only with black-
and-white,” Eggers said, explain-
ing how the boxy aspect ratio,
reminiscent of the early sound
era, was helpful for framing tall
objects like the tower and “also
very good for meaty close-ups of
two of the greatest faces that
have ever been born.”
Dafoe and Pattinson share an
electric chemistry that carries
the film, given that they’re the
only characters we ever encoun-
SEE LIGHTHOUSE ON C4a sadistic, Kubrickian manipula-
tor to try to tease these tensions
out — in fact, I just want every-
one to be as comfortable and
happy as they can be — but the
camera sees the truth.”
Loosely inspired by the real-things buttoned up and locked
up, and wanted to surprise me
and Willem and himself on set.
Willem was just ‘Go-go-go-go-go
Gadget’ Willem all the time. But
that’s the character dynamic. As
the director, you don’t need to beBY SONIA RAOEarly on in “The Lighthouse,”
a wild-eyed Willem Dafoe slaps
Robert Pattinson across the face
and, in an old-timey Downeast
Maine accent, barks the indelible
warning, “Bad luck to kill a sea-
bird!”
The scene, which lands some-
where in the middle of the film’s
range of outlandishness, sets the
tone for a hypnotic tale of light-
house keepers who drive each
other mad on a remote island in
1890s New England. In his sec-
ond feature, director Robert Egg-
ers embraces folksy horror simi-
lar to that of his 2016 debut, “The
Witch,” but this time employs
language as darkly comedic as it
is sinister and surreal.
A bushy-bearded Dafoe, 64,
and mustachioed Pattinson, 33,
form a striking pair whose differ-
ences, particularly when it
comes to their acting techniques,
only enhance the friction be-
tween their characters.
“The tension worked well on
set,” Eggers, 36, recalled over the
phone. “Rob wanted to keepBY TETA ALIMBefore British pop artist Charli
XCX took the stage of the 9:30
Club on Friday night, and right
after opening act Slayyyter, a mes-
sage suddenly appeared on my
phone screen that a stranger
wanted to AirDrop an image to
me. It was a meme of a bald Lady
Gaga with the text “A Wig is Torn,”
a play on Gaga’s role in last year’s
“A Star is Born.”
The random meme from a fer-
vent fan nearby set the tone for the
night, where frenzied, glitchy pop
on the margins met earnest com-
munity-building and space-mak-
ing.
That moment stood out be-
cause the reaction felt like it be-
longed online, yet it also didn’t feel
out of place IRL at a sold-out show
for Charli XCX’s latest album. It
was Stan Twitter come to life.
“Thank you for being the most
loyal... fans with excellent taste,”
the 27-year-old told the crowd.
“You really do have excellent taste,
because you’re here with me.”
Even though Charli XCX often
cites Britney Spears as an early
inspiration, her path to pop star-
dom straddles chart-topping
dominance and critical, niche suc-
cess. Her highest charting U.S. sin-
gle for her solo work, the sprightly
“Boom Clap,” came off a 2014 al-
bum. But, Charli also helped write
some of the biggest hits of this
decade: Shawn Mendes and Cami-
la Cabello’s “Señorita” took the No.
1 slot this summer, and her feature
on “Fancy” propelled Australian
rapper Iggy Azalea to the top in
2014.
Despite her uneven main-
stream success, Charli’s synth-
heavy, chrome-adorned pop music
has created a space where party-
ing hard, emotional connections
and uplifting community melt to-
gether in lively, danceable celebra-
tion.
Her latest album, “Charli,” is a
crystallization of her experimen-
tal, digital-drip sound. She can
trace her musical beginnings to
uploading songs on Myspace at 14
and playing at warehouse raves in
London shortly after. But she
started to focus in on her lyrical
play and musical adventurous-
SEE CHARLI XCX ON C4ist Jamal Khashoggi, is not in the
show. The exquisite “Benois Ma-
donna,” which travels from its
home at the Hermitage in St. Pe-
tersburg exceedingly rarely, is. The
unfinished “Saint Jerome,” seen re-
cently in New York, has been lent by
the Vatican, and a soulful portrait
of a young musician, from Milan,
has also made the trip.
In 2012, the National Gallery in
London mounted a show focused
on Leonardo’s years as a court art-
ist in Milan, and the highlight of
that exhibition was the juxtaposi-
tion of its “Virgin of the Rocks”
(which may have been made in
collaboration with Leonardo’s as-
sistants) with a version from the
Louvre. But the London painting
has not traveled to Paris, lending
force to then-National Gallery Di-
rector Nicholas Penny’s prediction
SEE EXHIBIT REVIEW ON C2BY PHILIP KENNICOTTparis — Expectations have been
high for the Leonardo da Vinci
exhibition that is being mounted
at the Louvre to mark the 500th
anniversary of the artist’s death.
For months, there has been specu-
lation, about which works would
travel to the Louvre, about the
geopolitical backstory to each po-
tential loan, and about a problem-
atic but fascinating painting
known as the “Salvator Mundi,”
which sold at auction for more
than $450 million in 2017.
The Louvre gave a first look at
the show on Friday afternoon.
Now we have answers.
“Salvator Mundi,” which is ru-
mored to be owned by Moham-
med bin Salman, the Saudi prince
who the CIA believes ordered the
death of Washington Post journal-EXHIBIT REVIEWLeonardo, in a new light
Though it is missing some major works, the Louvre shows us da Vinci’s mind
An unlikely yet shining pair in ‘The Lighthouse’
MUSIC REVIEWCharli XCX
creates a
space for
celebration
BY MANUEL ROIG-FRANZIAOur minds are weird and won-
derful blobs. Birthplaces of cre-
ativity and intellect, they can
also be difficult to harness, spi-
raling away from us, seemingly
beyond our control.
In Félix J.
Palma’s capti-
vating new col-
lection of short
stories, “The
Heart and Oth-
er Viscera,” the
celebrated
Spanish author
bores into the
interior life of
the mind, ex-
tracting spell-
binding tales
from the
worlds we cre-
ate inside our
heads.
The collec-
tion, recently released in a fluid
English-language translation by
Nick Caistor and Lorenza García,
at times reads like an assemblage
of “Twilight Zone” episodes
made even more vivid on the
printed page. An elderly, solitary
woman convinces herself that a
random encyclopedia salesman
is her dead son and a mystery
woman who regularly calls is her
daughter. A bored husband con-
jures his wife engaged in a
scandalous love affair when he
stumbles upon a letter stuffed
into a copy of “Anna Karenina.”
The book shares a title with its
most bizarre and macabre,
though somehow touching, short
story. The opening line of the
story is a perfect example of
Palma’s ability to lull the reader
with what seems like a ho-hum
line that suddenly makes your
head snap once you get to the
end of it: “On my birthday,
Marcelo gave me his gallblad-
der.”
“Love without bile,” the object
of Marcelo’s affection reasons.
“All right, got it.”
Such a gift doesn’t seem like a
prelude to a love story. But Palma
manages to weave that unusual
present into a larger meditation
on the complexities of human
SEE BOOK WORLD ON C4
BOOK WORLD
Mundane
moments
get ‘Twilight
Zone’ twists
XP CAPTURES, COURTESY EMISSIVE AND HTC VIVE ARTS/MUSEE DU LOUVREKLMNO
Style
MONDAY, OCTOBER 21, 2019. SECTION C EZ RECAROLYN HAX
The columnist offers some
resources for a reader
struggling with a bad
episode of depression. C3
MUSIC REVIEW
Christian Gerhaher, with
pianist Gerold Huber, sang
Mahler with stark emotion
at the Terrace Theater. C4MUSIC REVIEW
The Paris-based Arod
Quartet showed youthful
flair in its local debut at
the Library of Congress. C5KIDSPOST
You’ll see lots of skeletons
this Halloween, but what
do you know about the
one inside you? C8THE HEART
AND OTHER
VISCERA
By Félix J. Palma
Atria. 240 pp.
$17
ERIC CHAKEEN/A24 PICTURES
Willem Dafoe and Robert Pattinson star in “The Lighthouse.”GIANNI CIGOLINI/MONDADORI PORTFOLIO/
VENERANDA BIBLIOTECA AMBROSIANATOP: “Beyond the Glass” at the
Louvre’s new Leonardo da
Vinci show. ABOVE: A portrait
of da Vinci by Francesco Melzi.